Drug Lord: The Book

"The drug smuggling business goes on, the slaughtered dead pile up, the U.S. agencies continue to ratchet up their budgets, the prisons grow larger and all the real rules of the game are in this book, some kind of masterpiece." -- Charles Bowden

Tagged: Tijuana

As a dangerous cartel war erupts in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, a total of 2,000 murders were reported by government officials in the first ten months of 2018, said Frontera.info, a local Mexican news agency.

As of Saturday, a total of 126 homicides were recorded for October, with the new total coming in at 2,005 killings for the year, as per the Attorney General’s Office of the State (PGJE) report.

“I believe that there is still a lack of coordination of the authorities of the three orders of the government; this coordination requires the political will and the main one must be the Governor of the State, that the corresponding work be done to have results also in the matter of homicides (translated in English via Google Translator),” said the head of the Citizen Council of Public Security of the State (CCSP), Juan Manuel Hernandez Niebla.

Niebla said the record number of homicides for the Tijuana region had caused citizens to seek shelter as the cartel drug war spirals out of control.

Tijuana homicides per month during 2018:

January – 191
February -177
March – 184
April – 212
May – 216
June – 221
July – 253
August 211
September – 214
October – 126 (as of Oct. 20th)

The Secretary of Municipal Public Safety, Marco Antonio Sotomayor Amezuca, reiterated that a spike in murders is due to a power struggle between two drug cartels: the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generacion.

“What has been happening in this time is the empowerment of a criminal group that has gained more strength; they began to hear the presence of a foreign cartel and even the authorities do not have much information, it was said that there was no presence and suddenly we realized that there was a presence, even before this administration (translated into English via Google Translator),” Amezuca explained.

Last week, the U.S. Government offered an unprecedented $10 million bounty for the leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generacion cartel.

Nemesio Ruben Oseguera Cervantes, 52, known as “El Mencho,” is a fugitive and labeled as a major “Kingpin” under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in April 2015.

The cartel’s primary business is running methamphetamines into Los Angeles, New York, and Atlanta.

Experts have said, “El Mencho” is primarily the reason for the violent flare-up in Tijuana. Drug cartels have recently launched a cartel war for control of Tijuana because of its strategic importance of transporting drugs into the U.S.

In August, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unveiled a few strategies to combat drug cartels with the Mexican government, military, and the federal police. These plans called for attacking cartels’ financial structure and the creation of a new enforcement program based in Chicago that monitors international investigations of cartels.

(CNBC) — A group of 50 Central American migrants who set out from southern Mexico in late March have reached the U.S. border, having endured the long journey despite threats by President Donald Trump to secure the border with National Guard personnel.

Since peaking at around 1,500 people, the so-called migrant “caravan” has dwindled under pressure from Trump and Mexican migration authorities, who vowed to separate those migrants with a right to stay in Mexico from those who did not.

“Since yesterday, some began to cross into the United States to turn themselves in from Tijuana and request asylum. We understand more of (the migrants) will do the same,” said Jose Maria Garcia, director of Juventud 2000, an organization dedicated to assisting migrants.

Cartel violence in Tijuana continues with no end in sight as 11 killings were registered in a 24-hour period earlier this week. The deaths brought the number of homicides to 650 in 2018, according to government statistics as reported by local media. Authorities reported more than 100 homicides during the month of April.

Breitbart Texas previously reported that according to the attorney general’s office of Baja California, most homicides are going unsolved. This has contributed substantially to the current drug cartel violence. Of 132 registered homicides to start 2018, only five resulted in arrests with a total of 11 suspects detained.

This week’s violence began during the early morning hours of Monday, April 16 in the colonia Reforma neighborhood, local news outlets reported. Officials discovered the decapitated corpse of an unknown male, 30-35 years of age.

Later that day, at 11 am, police located the body of a 40-45-year male with gunshot wounds in the Hacienda Las Delicias Tercera Sección. At around 2 pm, in colonia El Lago neighborhood, officials located the body of a 41-year-old female who sustained numerous knife-type stab wounds.

Several hours later, a 25-30-year-old male died after being shot in a vacant lot in colonia Los Venados neighborhood. Shortly thereafter, officials discovered the decomposing corpse of an unidentified female in the colonia San Ángel neighborhood. Several minutes later, police found the body of a 35-year-old male in the colonia García neighborhood with gunshot wounds.

Following a record-breaking 2017 in which 1,734 murders were registered in the border city of Tijuana, 2018 has continued the alarming pace with at least 132 homicides in the first 23 days of January.

Of the 132 registered homicides, only five resulted in arrests with a total of 11 suspects detained, according to the state attorney general’s office.

In one case, three suspects who were arrested but later released after discarding two suitcases containing human body parts. They were not detained for murder but instead charged with exhuming corpses and were released pending a future court date. The move sparked outrage and eventually resulted in two of the suspects being detained. The third suspect is currently subject to an arrest warrant.

An average of five murders is being recorded daily since late October 2017. During a recent stretch in less than 48 hours, a total of 14 homicides were counted in to include the execution of a taxi driver in front of the Macro Plaza–a popular tourist destination frequented by U.S. citizens. The taxi driver was executed by two gunmen but left his passengers unharmed. This past Monday, the state attorney general’s office reported nine executions for the day, including an incident in which two people were killed and six wounded.

This ongoing violence in Tijuana has been a result of a turf war between rival drug cartels as they fight for key trafficking routes and street-level distribution, according to local media reports. The escalation can mainly be attributed to the hostilities between the Sinaloa Cártel and their one-time ally, Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) who have aligned themselves with the Cártel Tijuana Nueva Generación (CTNG), according to Breitbart law enforcement sources.

On Tuesday, authorities reported the discovery of a narco-banner left hanging from an overpass on a well-traveled road. The notice contained threats directed at “El Güero Chompas” and Alberto García Meza alias “El Wicho” signed by the Cártel Tijuana Nueva Generación (CTNG), local reports indicate. “El Güero Chompas” is José Luis Mendoza Uriarte of the Sinaloa Cartel and leader of the cell known as “Los Chompas” or “Los Uriarte”. This cell is related to Raydel López Uriarte, who was arrested in 2010. “El Wicho” also belongs to the Sinaloa Cártel. The banner adds that “for every 1 or 2 you kill of ours, we will kill 4 or 6 of yours.” The message is signed by the Cártel Tijuana Nueva Generación (CTNG).

The murder rate in the Mexican border city of Tijuana spiked with a record-breaking number of murders. The number of murders climbed as drug cartels battle over control of key drug trafficking routes and the control of the lucrative street-level drug distribution business in the region. The escalating violence in the large border city can be attributed primarily to the hostilities between the Sinaloa Cartel and their one-time ally, Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG).

In recent days, the number of murders in Tijuana for the year surpassed 1,500 after the city saw six murders in a seven-hour period, local news outlets reported.

The murder victims included one man who was shot inside a home. Two other men who were also wounded but survived the attack. In a separate case, three different victims were left throughout the city — all showing similar methods of torture and murder. The victims had all been shot in the head, had their hands and feet tied, and were wrapped in blankets. The last murder dealt with the discovery of a severed human leg. That victim’s body has yet to be found.

The escalating number of murders in Tijuana surpassed 1,500 well before the end of the year. This reveals a dramatic spike when compared to the previous record-setting year in 2016 when only 910 were recorded. According to the San Diego Tribune, the 2016 figure had been alarming at the time since it had broken the 2008 record of 844 murders.

As the cartel-fueled turf-wars continue to rage, the spike in murders places Tijuana as one of the leading cities in homicides for 2017. According to Frontera.Info, the spike in murders is fueled by the turf wars between cartel-connected gangs who handle the street level distribution of drugs. Another reason behind the spike in violence deals with Tijuana being one of the main drug trafficking areas that fuel the U.S. drug market in California. The city also serves as a hub for distribution into other major cities throughout the nation.